1 



I38 GREAT MEN OF MODERN HISTORY. 



found with it is that Charles ranks lower than Erasmus, while 

 he should rank higher, if anything. But in here comes another 

 element which has so far been ignored. The wife of Robert 

 and mother of Charles was Susannah Wedgwood, daughter of 

 Josiah Wedgwood, of pottery fame, who was born in 1730 and 

 who was the thirteenth child and youngest son of Thomas, born 

 in 1687. The maternal grandfather of Charles thus comes in 

 class B, while the seventy-nine years from 1730 to 1809 also places 

 Susannah in high rank. We thus have in Charles Darwin a very 

 unusual accumulation of years on the maternal side of the house 

 that does not, and naturally cannot, appear in the diagram. 



JOHN HUNTER. 



John Hunter, born 1728, was England's greatest surgeon and 

 physiologist, and an author of note. He was the youngest of ten 

 children and was born when his father was 65 years old, so that 

 it is quite evident that old men may have prominent sons, and that 

 there is plenty of opportunity for many of those who read these 

 pages. 



WILLIAM PITT. 



William Pitt, the younger, was born in 1759, and was the 

 son of an almost equally famous William Pitt, born in 1708. The 

 elder Pitt was son of Robert, who was son of Thomas, who was 

 a youngest son. The mother of the elder Pitt was a youngest 

 daughter. 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 



Oliver Cromwell, born in 1599, was the fifth child of Robert, 

 who was the youngest son of Sir Henry. The mother of Crom- 

 well was descended from the youngest son of Alexander, lord 

 steward of Scotland. Charles I, whom Cromwell displaced, was 



